Federal Contracts Increased by over $175 Billion during 2000 - 2005

Yeh, you read that correctly. $175 BILLION!!!

But to make matters worse, only yesterday the Senate rejected a proposal to form an oversight committee to investigate "contract improprieties" in the war zones. To his credit, Henry Waxman (not a US Senator, but an honest US Congressman from California) released a 65-page report described as "the first comprehensive assessment of contracting" by the LA Times. You might want to click on the link on the right side of Waxman's home page, entitled Full Report: Dollars, not Sense, if you have time (and stomach) to read it.

Hardly unexpected were the mentions of cost-plus contract increases (no company can lose on one of those!), monopoly contracts and "no-bid Contracts" -- the fastest growing such contractor in this last category being Dick Cheney's favorite, Haliburton.

The fun though is in the details -- items such as meals that were not delivered to our troops (but for which we paid), cost overruns (for which we taxpayers picked up the difference), enormous sums of unaccounted for funds earmarked to build more than a dozen (non)permanent bases in Iraq and the Taj Mahal of the Middle East -- the new US Embassy in Baghdad -- and ...



well, you get the idea.

And you wonder why the Republicans are frightened silly about the possibility that we might redeploy our troops out of Iraq to neighboring countries as is suggested by Murtha?

I don't. It's called greed!

It's time for us to redeploy out of Iraq NOW and yes, investigate thoroughly the war zone procurement improprieties before another ten to twenty billion (or maybe $200 billion) US dollars slips through the cracks.